PUDUCHERRY: Two days after she went missing, the decomposed body of a nine-year-old child, was found on Tuesday in a drain near her residence at Solai Nagar in Puducherry. Responding to complaints of foul odour emanating from the drain, police on Tuesday found the girl’s decomposed body dumped in the ditch, wrapped in a dhoti with her both hands and feet tied and her mouth gagged with a strap.
The body has been sent for postmortem. The procedure is expected to be performed on Wednesday morning. The Muthialpet police have detained several suspects, including two teenage boys and an elderly man, for questioning. A special task force (STF) has also joined forces with the local police to unravel the truth behind the gruesome death. “We are looking into all aspects of the murder,” said a senior police official.
The incident has sent shockwaves through the community, leaving residents and authorities stunned and grieving. The girl, who had gone out to play, went missing on Saturday and her parents and locals, after hours of search, lodged a complaint at the Muthialpet police station around 8pm.
Multiple police teams were searching for her for the past two days with the help of sniffer dogs but she could not be traced. The girl was last seen in the CCTV camera footage lifted from an adjoining street, playfully hopping on the road at noon.
The community’s grief has spilled onto the streets, with anguished residents demanding swift justice for the victim and her grieving family. Calls for a thorough CB-CID inquiry into the heinous crime have intensified, with former MLA Vaiyapuri Manikandan petitioning Chief Minister N Rangasamy for immediate action.